The Newsroom Recap: The Password is…Illegals

The Newsroom

By vallegirl | Wednesday, July 4, 2012 | 12:00 am | 6 Comments
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Posted in: Recaps, The Newsroom

Lest Jim get to far out in the jerk lead, here comes Maggie, rounding the Sookie’s Sense of Entitlement bend to snatch it back, completely blowing his reaction out of proportion and losing her shit, assuming he thinks she’s just using the show as a stepping stone to marrying Don. Seriously, Alison Pill was fantastic in Scott Pilgrim so I know she can find something likeable in the most cantankerous characters but stop making her work so damn hard, Sorkin.

Seriously, stop making her do this.

For his part, Jim, boss, who has no problems shit talking Don, gets all tongue-tied and stupid trying to explain himself/apologize but Maggie’s barking “ring ring” to get Jim to role play the pre-interview. Jim says his name is “Glenn Fisher” and Maggie pauses for a moment, since it’s a new press agent, then sits at her desk while Jim goes over the procedure. And here’s where I seriously lose it with her. She, for no reason whatsoever, rudely and loudly mocks him, her boss, to the point where he asks her if he did anything to piss her off. Stop indulging her shitty behavior.

She admits that she’s been wondering that, too. Jim asks if, since she now realizes she’s acting completely unprofessionally and inappropriately and in a manner that can and should get her fired with cause, will she stop? Nope, but she’s just being honest. Rather than emphatically suggest she take a walk down to HR to discuss her future with the network, Jim wracks up his own inappropriate behavior points by calling her irrational. Has no one ever worked in a real job with real consequences on this show? Because Maggie’s fast approaching Hannah from Girls level of delusion and entitlement. After that, all that’s left is Putin.

Maggie gets more and more unprofessional and agitated and antagonistic and generally awful. Oh, but it was to set up some Sorkin rant about how these immigrants, who’ve risked so much to come to this country, deserve a better descriptor than “illegals.” Yes, they do. That’s why it already exists and has been used earlier in the episode, up to and including part of her rant: Undocumented immigrants/workers. Is Sorkin back on the pipe? Whatever, this was so Jim can get starry-eyed about Maggie and allow her, the most immature and unprofessional person on their staff, to conduct the pre-interview on her own. That won’t end horribly.

Oh…barf.

Mackenzie watches as Sloan finishes up her market report. They have a walk & talk where they discuss the difference between which and whom and whether a corporation is a person. Oh, Sorkin. You’re so subtle. Sloan’s wondering WTF, since Mackenzie’s kind of being an ass. Her attraction to Will is starting to make sense.

They go to Mackenzie’s office to blow smoke up each other’s asses about how extra awesome they are and how much more money they could be making if they just sold out, man. Then Mackenzie offers Sloan a five minute nightly segment to explain the economic shithole we’re in. Sloan suggests someone with more gravitas so Mackenzie can sexually harass by implying gravitas won’t stoop to flashing some leg for ratings, baby. Sloan smartly jokes about “pole dancing while explaining sub-prime mortgages” and I think Mackenzie thinks she charmingly says “If you’re up to it, sure.” Rather than suggest they continue this discussion with HR and her union rep, Sloan agrees then gets up to leave.

You know it’s still sexual harassment even if you’re a woman, right?

Showing that she left whatever dignity she had back in Afghanistan, Mackenzie begs Sloan to be her friend because she doesn’t have any and Sloan’s like “Yeah, this needy routine isn’t helping,” but actually tries to bond by saying one of her exes cheated on her, too.

Due to her earlier promise to Will, Mackenzie starts dorking out saying it’s not true but she can’t tell her the truth and whatever whatever, Sloan just wants to head for the hills to get away from the crazy lady. Mackenzie follows her into the newsroom squawking “Hedidn’tcheathedidn’tcheat.” Realizing chewing through her leg isn’t an option, Sloan turns to Mackenzie and bluntly tells her she’s enabling an ass. Where’s a righteous Sorkin monologue when you really need one?

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vallegirl
About

Vallegirl has never actually lived in a valley, has a lot of time on her hands and likes to yell at kids about how things were in her day.  Currently in LA, she's also spent a lot of time in the great states of  New York and Florida so she's not crazy, it's just a cultural thing.

6 Comments

  1. 1
    hstrhth
    Posted July 4, 2012 at 1:58 pm

    that was absolutely horrible.
    you seem like quite a nasty person.

  2. 2
    Matthew S
    Posted July 5, 2012 at 12:35 am

    i thought there were times you were nasty–i’m not sure if you used the term cum one time to describe maggie or if that was for something else–either way i’m a huge sorkin, i was totally looking forward to this show and i dont know i feel empty watching it. and then i read this and its fuckin hysterical. it sort of confirms that empty feeling, and thus i can’t delude myself into thinking the show is too good (well, actually, it has promise, but its so damn unoriginal, it’s like paint-by-sorkin-numbers). and youre remarks were great and funny and there you go good sir. YOU WIN.

  3. 3
    JasonR
    Posted July 5, 2012 at 8:46 am

    I kinda liked the pilot, but this was Sorkin at his most preachy & intolerable, and couple that with characters acting in a way that professionals with brains never would in real life and it = suck. I’ll give this one more week and if it’s anything like this past episode I’m done.

    Nothwithstanding the bad episode, this was a GREAT recap!! Great job calling Sorkin & Co. on all the ridiculousness.

  4. 4
    maryedith
    Posted July 5, 2012 at 10:02 pm

    I’m still scratching my head over why this show is on HBO. People wouldn’t have such high expectations for it if it were on the networks and there’s absolutely nothing about it that isn’t network. I usually hate it when people say this, but Jeff Daniels come across as completely unlikable, and it’s a problem because I think he sees his character as someone you just can’t help but love. Which makes me think Jeff Daniels is kind of dumb. I keep thinking of William Hurt and how he would have played the guy more subtly.

  5. 5
    vallegirl vallegirl
    Posted July 7, 2012 at 9:19 am

    Yeah, this is a straight up NBC drama. Especially since Sorkin isn’t even that comfortable writing in the vulgarity.

    But I think the biggest hurdle for Daniels is the cognitive dissonance of Will being such a preeningly awful person in general with the fact that the writing suggests that we’re supposed to identify and even admire the character. He has to find a way to make something as cringeworthy as interrupting a staff meeting to throw out factoids like he’s Mr. Burns “endearing.” He’s normally quite good at finding the charisma if not the likeability in difficult characters but thus far, Will hasn’t been able to show either.

    I don’t normally place all the blame for a bad performance on the writing, and maybe it’s because I’m a big Daniels fan in general, but Sorkin’s not doing Will any favors with the flat, obnoxious he’s being written. He took a truly unlikeable character in The Squid and the Whale and managed to convince us that, at some point, someone as smart as Laura Linney would find him attractive enough to marry him. Here, I don’t understand why he doesn’t get punched, or sued, on a daily basis and I especially don’t understand Charlie’s devotion. Specifically because if he’s based on Olbermann he should have alienated everyone he’s ever worked with, since Keith never met a bridge he didn’t want to blow up.

    In a weird way, Will would be more “likeable” if they’d acknowledge how utterly unlikeable he is. Let him really embody what a jerk Will McAvoy is in “real life” behind the public Jay Leno mewling affability and that would come across as more human than a douchebag who tells us what Neal’s name means, then have Neal tell him, starry-eyed, that he didn’t know that. Really? The guy who broke down the BP oil spill in five minutes didn’t know what his name meant?

  6. 6
    maryedith
    Posted July 7, 2012 at 10:06 am

    Maybe hearing that Fresh Air interview with Daniels threw off my judgment of his acting, and intelligence. I completely agree with your idea that the character should be written as more unlikable. Because Daniels, in that interview, seemed to admire the character so much himself, I was blaming his acting. But reading what you say, I’m wondering whether the problem isn’t more that the other characters’ reactions to him just aren’t credibly written. I wonder too if Sorkin is so surrounded by people who all read and say the same things that he was figuring the HBO audience was just waiting with baited breath to see these opinions expressed on the screen and so he didn’t bother too much with details like character and dialogue?

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